still. starts on t.v. dot com. the u.s. is warning the latest fierce battles in syria will be a nail in president assad's coffin as we reported our youngsters are being increasingly drawn into the bloody conflict on both warring sides. broke with reverberations members of a russian punk band go to trial facing seven years in jail for a protest in a cathedral in a case that's divided russian society. and another campaign promise goes on fulfilled as barack obama spends billions to prosecute whistle blows showing the u.s. government is as open as its pledged. online

on screen international news and comment live from moscow the u.s. military chief says the fighting in syria's largest city of aleppo will ultimately be a nail in president assad's coffin leon panetta reese currently on a middle east tour promising to continue to push for assad's departure the commercial hub of aleppo has been the scene of fierce battles between syrian regime troops and government forces for more than a week now both parties view the fighting as decisive and likely to define the country's fate but the u.s. and its allies soley condemning president sad for the civil conflict the standoff is getting more violent on both sides and asics on a boy to reports it's now seeing more and more youngsters involved young minds burning hearts bad blood while the syrian conflict often comes across as a power struggle of grown man on the ground many of those who fight and die are in their late teens early twenty's. this group of f.s.a.

snipers operates in a deserted town forty kilometers southwest of homes twice a day to god to shell a syrian army checkpoint nearby omar's twenty three he left his family in dubai to join the uprising. to support the young fighters and to feel their pain and to experience what very experiencing on the ground and to help with the operation. while their weapons are becoming more sophisticated if you are good at handling them most say they want to become martyrs and their dads help recruit their younger brothers. but those they're aiming at are not much older but a military hospital in damascus a week long supply of coffins has been used in the past then forty eight hours while the syrian authorities do you know it really is military just so all indications are that over the past few months it has increased dramatically here in

damascus main military hospital soldiers and officers just the last two days. and the beginning of the uprising the soldiers were laid to rest to the sounds of a solemn march but if you days ago a military band was ambushed now the burials are conducted in silence and then bollock nineteen year old he is an army conscript who is tasked with putting bodies into conference he was working in his uncle small shop in aleppo before being drafted a year ago. no i am not afraid to die i would do all that to be in the place of my fallen comrades and to become a martyr defending my country it's every man's duty. another nineteen year old lies in a coffin just a few steps away he was the victim of a sniper near homs but unlike many in syria his father and uncle are not calling for revenge. we just want peace. jesus all the prophets

calls for peace we need it. march of them has long been glorified in muslim countries but it's also one of the reasons why the conflict in syria has been so protracted and sold deadly when the youngsters profess readiness to die for their cause they usually even more ready to kill for it. r.t. damascus syria. examiner is constantly following the developments in the syrian standoff from inside the country she's sharing her first hand experience via twitter feed and says sectarian violence is increasingly looming in the conflict with prominent people being killed apparently for their religious views analysis and images from the combat zone also lined up. for more on syria i spoke to michelle he's from the center for research on globalization and he believes there are indications that nato states may soon move from war mongering against the syrian regime to realize action. the u.s.

defense secretary leon panetta has reiterated washington's threats of military intervention accusing the syrian government forces of waging what he describes as a tragic attack on their own people quote unquote the western military alliance is contemplating support of opposition rebel forces in fact they are the foot soldiers of the of the u.s. they took military alliance just want to quickly ask you about turkey's involvement in turkey's interest reports are surfacing that the turkish army has started to closely monitor weather conditions there in syria leading to speculation they could possibly be preparing to launch a strike how likely is that what they hope to achieve by that. well that certainly is a member of nato it's a heavyweight in nato it has already encroaching on syria's northern border. is providing safe havens to the rebels it has training camps

it's collaborating with the qataris and the solid is it is supporting the muslim brotherhood which muslim brotherhood fighters out of turkey so that these articles these. indications should of course be taken very seriously. you're watching live from moscow still ahead remain in president. second in each month a tent like a large majority wanting him out of office for supporting rounds of partial sturdy counts shows that sometimes it's better to be lucky than good plus. the u.k. tops the list of countries most exposed to why in the view of find out why in the business updates or at least. it was a music performance that split russian society in could learn three members of a female punk band in jail for up to seven years feminist rockers from pussy riot

have gone on trial in moscow for staging an anti government punk prayer in the capital's main cathedral. reports public opinion is torn between those who call them martyrs and others who say they are blasphemous. the trial is now underway for the three girls from the provocatively named pussy riot this comes after the high profile stunt back in february where they performed a protest in the center of quite the state give kids the drill that gain widespread recognition on the internet that it calls outrage amongst the religious community with paycheck calling it blasphemy now they stand accused of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred although still a to other girls have pleaded not guilty to these charges because if that found guilty they could face up to seven he is in prison now the group maintained that they were protesting against the cools from their lives just leaders of the support of the now president putin is cool huge amounts of control to see here russia it

really has divided the population you've got people taking very radical stances both ways the religious community have reacted very very strongly we have paid karylle coming out some calling it blasphemy girls as we said not on used to this type of scandal they performed high profile stunts like this in the post there was video clips of the clip in the museum here most go another of them kissing the female police offices again they maintain this is political motivated this is that their artistic expression get a hair loss about the silliness of the stunts and a lot of the supporters saying that perhaps is misguided but the question is really now remain how and indeed even if these go should be punished in this way for the stunts well promise of the me to move out of shares his opinion of pussy rot in an interview with the u.k. toyman's newspaper you can find it on t.v. dot com plus discover how nato intervention in libya last year is impacting

russia's stance on the crisis in syria as well as if it is forced on the big games and how sochi can prepare for twenty forty. to seventy seats and. london have members of the so-called and then picked family feeling the heat going ice is putting security troops inside to fill the void find out more online at r.t. dot com. russia is going to boost its economic and military presence in the arctic the plans have been confirmed by president vladimir putin's russia as one of the six countries claiming its territory in the arctic which has experts say contains a quarter of the world's untapped oil and gas resources well for more on where the arctic race currently stands i'm joined by ourselves he's professor of economics

and finance in the university of iceland now russia wants the arctic sea resources to be proportional to the size of each claimants coastline is the best approach. coming on that on this issue is sort of in broad terms. of the complexity of the issue apart is. russia. want to refer to that most likely because the correlations of the arctic. they are members of the course of the un convention. law of the sea whereas the u.s. is not some member of the you want commercial capital or sea salt to. push on behalf of russia and stating it's economic song is you can't be you more suit all of the. only. legal legally

binding but the thing because a lot of those who are are peaceful members of the arctic our council. the one we. it's the most sort of military might and political significance of the u.s. is not a member of the of the treaty which on which grounds today russia. put forward this claim well let's talk about the u.s. has been boosting its heart to efforts quite considerably hasn't hillary clinton visiting norway recently where the two countries agreed on americas what they describe as a leading role on this issue i mean what role are we talking about what's it based on why the u.s. being a leader in this role well the u.s. has been has not been that a true placing much emphasis on the arctic until of late. and that call him and you were searching policy has physically being with you that if we

know for the u.s. tool to form some sort of a strategy in regards to the exploration of the arctic. the u.s. alicia's one of the first sort of significant pushes in that step or an end to that the russian stock which is welcoming. them and certainly it is so the u.s. is as with other nations certainly it is waking up to the increased importance of the arctic and its resources just very briefly and finally where could this race for the arctic eventually lead after all russia and its military the region just very briefly place well i think the most likely outcome is going to be. the resort peacefully if you are hurt because. there are not a large territorial disputes it's not merely an interpretation of the scale of the. song which. the country.

the fact is that important but it. ok. thank you very much indeed professor of economics and finance and university of iceland great to hear your thoughts on this thank you for joining us live here in r.t. if you're terrified. in two thousand and eight barack obama made a promise that if he was elected president he would make the u.s. government more transparent it's not twenty twelve he's prosecuted a record number of whistleblowers spending billions in the process as gun reports. keeping government secrets is expensive business according to america's information security office last year the us spent around thirteen billion dollars on classifications that's twice as much as it spends ten years ago and more than the entire budget of the country's environmental protection agency for instance the us government keeps way too many secrets here and even government entities responsible for evaluating these things like the office for government information oversight.

these officers have may have done studies and said well you know a lot of this material doesn't need to be protected so it's in many ways it's a huge waste of money u.s. security agencies regularly fight in courts to keep volumes of decades old documents classified like the files on the cia's bay of pigs operation in cuba when the u.s. tried to overthrow fidel castro in one thousand nine hundred sixty one but the sharp increase in secrecy over the last decade is due to america's expanding counterterrorism programs rather than on classified historical files the power that the national security required under president obama was greater than any time. during the cold war period the government indicted only three people for disclosing classified information however the obama administration alone has prosecuted six government officials believe king information to the press more than all other past

administrations combined and thomas drake was one of them it was a senior executive of america's largest intelligence agency during the bush administration he blew the whistle on fraud and abuse with regards to the agency's secret surveillance program mr drake was charged under the espionage act watch it was happening now particular my case it sent it extraordinarily chilling message that anybody who i was a senior executive the government had a very high position had a say. it sends an extraordinarily chilling message that if you speak out if you speak up we're going to hammer you and we're going to hammer you hard because look what we did to mr drake but after a public outcry last year the government dropped charges against thomas drake in exchange for him pleading guilty to a misdemeanor of misuse of a government computer speaking truth to power is very dangerous and his world power elites. those in charge they don't like dirty linen being aired

they don't like the skeletons in the closet being seen. and they not only do they object to it they decide to turn it into criminal activity national security german they say the government always has and always will leak information deliberately to advance their own interests and it's not at all leakers that they're after the primary. you're is that the national security state is striking back is becoming much more repressive in regard to its response to whistleblowing you know individuals who. oppose policies that are carried out or who oppose simply abuses of power the obama administration is spending record amounts to keep its secrets coming down hard on the kurds and yet thousands of classified documents are making their way onto the web the internet has taken leaks to

a whole new level but it seems the more we are in it reveals the more upset the government becomes about secrecy i'm going to check out in washington our team. and while some in the u.s. a busy trying to silence those speaking out all those marginalized anyone who does not agree with mainstream politicians next up l.t. talks to dr howard friedman who argues the american political system disregards the interests of the poorest people. i can't under esta. the impact of money on the american political system and in fact there's some interesting analysis done by political scientists that show that people from the top third of the economic class have a very strong voice in government people in the middle third have a weak voice in government and i'm sure that people in the bottom third of the economic group united states have no measurable influence that's a real challenge in american democracy is to make sure that we really are in a world of one person one vote instead of dollar equals spoke.

that interview in full a little later here on. remain as president has survived a referendum on his impeachment for the second time during his rule. could have been the latest from office by the economic crisis measures demanded by the international creditors but a low turnout invalidated the poll allowing him to remain in power. has been following the story in bucharest the initial exit polls have come out on the referendum vote on whether or not to impeach its suspended president that's right up a cesspool well the numbers show that it failed to reach the a fifty percent plus one vote a requirement in order to validate that vote now something is a referendum is that three weeks of political bickering really between us that's a right that the sets his rival center left her and the prime minister on top of the cesspool has been accused of really isn't as well as overstepping his powers as

president denies any wrongdoing or that he had done anything on constitutional what's going to happen next is that the cesspool will be reinstated as president and soon as the final numbers come out and it did indeed validate that referendum vote let's not forget his popularity has gone down the drastically ever since he introduced the measures in two thousand and ten as a result of i.m.f. and back without full funding and this is certainly not going to be easy in a country that is very. politically very tired of any political bickering and again these two sides seem to show that they are not going to stop accusing the other side of any wrongdoing we're already hearing some scandals coming out again coming from the side they will have to figure out a way to work together you have to still maintaining positions as president and prime minister what romania needs now really is political stability especially for its european counterparts who are watching this very closely insisting that the

country find a way to stabilize the situation and to exercise democracy the rule of law is still be a checks and balances in all the institutions. when i have a quick look at some other stories making headlines around the world at this stage of the day the suspect in the colorado massacre is formally charged with one of the bloodiest shootings in u.s. history james holmes is accused of killing twelve people and injuring fifty eight at the local premiere of the new batman movie if found guilty he could face the death penalty however his defense is expected to plead insanity proven mentally ill his college psychiatrist could face charges for failing to prevent a tragedy before. people have been killed in poland after a train smashed into a minibus the vehicle apparently drove onto an unguarded crossing and was carried thirty meters down the track the identities of the victims haven't been released but it's thought they were ukrainian mineworkers it's the latest in a series of road accidents in poland which has claimed more than two hundred lives this summer alone. u.s.

republican presidential candidate mitt romney is continuing to make headlines on his world tour after appearing to criticize the london olympics he's now in israel where he referred to the disputed city of jerusalem as the country's capital he also claimed jewish culture is more advanced than palestinian it's provoked the wrath of palestinian officials who condemned his statements as racist and unacceptable despite this his tours reported to have gained his campaign a million dollars in donations. now there's going to funnel business update for the day marina it's been a pretty good day for the markets overall would you agree with yeah i would say it is been a quite a good day except for the u.s. of course but in terms of asia russia and europe we saw gains as we're about see in the second but the u.s. is not the normally they're the ones who are optimistic but it's not gone that would stay at all gets all of that in a second but first i'd like to start with europe and they came particular because it has topped the list of countries most exposed to

a decline of the euro when and if of course that happens a big one that's what we're talking about according to maple consultants they made a map of the most unsafe nations as they put it and they're about to be shown in red there we go that's up for extremely vulnerable countries are the czech republic hungary poland and most of all of the u.k. this study blames it's having the lives of x. force of a confluence and the banking system fast growing major economies like russia are also called higher risk and i discussed this issue earlier with nick parsons from national australia bank and first i asked him whether countries can do anything to minimize those risks. countries outside the eurozone can indeed seek to protect themselves they can cut interest rates they can print money in the case of countries like switzerland they can effectively put a floor on their exchange rate so they can seek to protect themselves against disruptive capital flows they can seek to protect themselves against

a collapsing trade but all this is really seeking to minimize damage rather than avoid it why do you think the breaks in the african countries are also high risk i looked at the report and russia was ranked number fifty one hundred sixty nine in and that's really not what you'd classify is the highest risk so i think some of the spin that was put out was perhaps a little misleading obeyed bowl comforting for you guys over there but i'm saying with the issues than there than poor is reading service believes banking systems in russia and the c.i.s. are any little danger of being hit hard from the eurozone debt crisis and that's because there are direct links with european banks are limited however the agency as russian and c.i.s. banking systems could suffer if the global economic slowdown weighs on oil and commodities prices and of course that's because especially when it comes to russia the country is very adamant the pendant. but take

a look at the international markets and how they performed we have new europe there both the footsie and the bags out at over one percent and that's on the hopes that brussels later on this week will announce more economic stimulus and physically well the main gainers they were it's in the end spain which is a surprise considering everything that we need here in the past couple of months but they did well today. current sees the euro has reversed last week's gains against the us dollar when the comes to the ruble it was a mixed picture today against the euro lost to the greenback and the focus like to look at russian markets that often isn't that we saw in europe trickle down a year as well the arts yes and the my sense that it over a one percent if i can sell you some of the companies north from nickel was among the main gainers of the day and that's after output of its board metal that's of course nickel to seven percent in the first half of the year we also had gas from the particularly well and that's after forbes magazine named it as one of the most profitable companies in two thousand and eleven them also had b t b and that's

after it announced that it will jointly by. area and also. pay b.p. and that's because the four russian billionaires who own half of the venture have voted against the. dollar dividends their representative said quote. governance remains strange payment now is not true that this comes on reports the russian co-owners will sell their stake in the company to roll snuff and which will reverse is this leave the consortium. and now wall street as i said the only one trading right now and there it's a completely different picture to oversee all day across the board so both the dow and the nasdaq blues and the dow is pretty much flat but the nasdaq is slowly reaching the half of her sides in the red and mostly this is as investors are hesitant before making any big moves that's after a few days surge in the markets that we saw and also because they're expected to

see the ball will be said when the central bank will hold a meeting lever this week and also we are expecting a u.s. a monthly jobs report investors always waiting and extremely cautious before we see those reports now want to talk about luxury brands because shares in this industry are going to hire and the high increasing every single day and that's the spine of the financial turmoil we've seen around the world and that's why we sent our very own kitty pilgrim to find out why that is. the global financial crisis is not a topic people shopping around this part of town are particularly worried about i'm here in moscow on one of the most exclusive stories on talking fabulous people designer labels and of course fat wallets as well and this is the exact market savvy investors are tapping into right now trying to make false cash out of people that love to spend it well a perfect example of this in recent years would be michael kors is

a high end fashion house they've been producing clothes for over thirty years now based in hong kong announcing fragrances and accessories as well now. for the best performing i.p.o. they were she placed number one now they came out with their initial public offering on the fourteenth of december last year and it's now trading at twice that amount and as far as asian companies are concerned seven of the maze up the top ten of the top five performance companies that's really is people in asia they're running more money and generally have more disposable income to go shopping and that's really in spite of slowing growth in china and the european sovan debt crisis so it seems as to use coming in and. out a luxury goods at. least for the life of the people who shop around places like this set away. and i live with katie his optimism they're full of that they have

their health grammarian thanks for a great day thanks very much indeed and yes i'll be back with the main news stories for you in just a few minutes this is all t. life here in moscow.

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